


Under the Blanket

by Colette_Capricious



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester UST, First Time, John Knows, M/M, Pre-Series, Weecest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:19:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colette_Capricious/pseuds/Colette_Capricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is relentless when he wants something. Dean is helpless in the face of Sam's desires and this thing that is building between them. It can't happen, it won't happen. It's wrong. But why isn't John doing anything to stop it? Could there actually be something on this earth than John Winchester is afraid to face?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're in the car with a beautiful boy

**Author's Note:**

> Sam is 14 in this first part. Nothing explicit happens, not even a kiss. The next chapter will be explicit. You've been warned. I hate to stop it here, but it reads better split.

Dean’s 18 years old and in crammed into the back of the car like a kid. He should be sitting in the front seat. Hell, he should be driving. But John’s a man with a mission and they’re not stopping tonight. No crappy yet stationary motel waiting in the dark. Just the leather seats for a bed, and the growl of the engine and the hum of the tires on the road for a lullaby. Nothing they have done a thousand times before. But Sammy couldn't sleep. He wanted Dean to come in the back with him, wants to use Dean as a pillow. 

Sam is relentless when he wants something. 

It’s too hot in the car for Sam’s blanket, a crocheted thing he stole from some rental house a few years ago, but Sam wants the damn blanket, so Dean spreads it over him, tugging it up to Sam’s shoulders. Dean's arm is stretched out across the bench seat, and Sam’s head is heavy on his thigh. The heat from Sam’s body radiates down Dean’s leg and into his stomach as Sam head-butts him, twisting as he tries to get comfortable. His face slides against Dean’s leg, breath warm and moist when his mouth drags across the denim. Dean lets his hand drop off the seatback and grabs Sam by the hair, lifting his head up a millimeter.

“Dude. Stop freakin’ wiggling.” He uses his handhold in Sam’s hair to give Sam’s head a light shake.

Sam whines, not opening his eyes. “Can’t get comfortable.” At 14, Sam is in the middle of yet another growth spurt. Wide as the Impala is, he still has to bend his body to lie on the seat, and his knees brush against the driver’s seat. “Back hurts.” A particularly strong wiggle pushes his knees hard into John’s back.

“Sam,” John says warningly. Dean looks up, catching his father’s eyes in the rear view mirror. By necessity, Dean is fluent in spoken and unspoken John Winchester and in those eyes he reads, _Deal with this. Make it go away._

Dean holds in the sigh pressing against his lips. Sam’s the sigher. That kid can say more with his breath than most people can with words. Still with his hands in Sam’s hair, he turns Sam’s head up to catch his eye. He tilts his head ever so slightly towards John, shakes it a hair right and left. Sam raises one eyebrow. _Message received._ Eyes dark, catching sparks from the headlights of passing cars, Sam holds Dean’s gaze and shifts the tiniest bit, tugging up the blanket, knees almost, _almost_ , touching the front seat. _My back_ , he mouths. John’s shoulders are tense, knuckles whitening as his hands clenched and unclench around the steering wheel. 

Dean turns until he is sitting with his back half against the door and half against the seat. He slides Sam up further onto his lap before reaching his arm across the top of the bench seat. Sam pushes his feet against the other door, slowly sliding across Dean until his head is pillowed by both thighs, arm tucked around Dean’s side. Dean feels the weight of him, heavy and warm, between his legs. Sam is still fucking squirming, rubbing his head gently into Dean’s crotch, silently bending and unbending his legs just enough to almost, but not quite, touch his father’s seat. Dean can feel Sam’s eyes on him, can feel the challenge. But he just tilts his head back against the door, neck stretched out, eyes closed and hand gripped tightly on the seat back. His other hand rests on the front seat, fingers tapping restlessly, an arrhythmic tattoo.

“Deeean,” Sam whispers, drawing it out long and low, body tense across Dean’s lap, arm tight around Dean's back.

Exhaling, deeply but silently, Dean drops his hand down until it rests on Sam’s hip. Maybe that will be enough for Sam tonight. Sam’s body softens against Dean’s, but the air in the car is still close, tense with something unnamed, and both Sam and John seem to be holding their breath. Sam’s hip shifts under Dean’s hand, threatening more movement. Sam is always more willing then Dean to stir the embers of their father’s lightly-banked anger. This is Sam’s trump card; a game of chicken Dean will never win.

“Okay, Sammy. Okay.” Dean slides his hand under the blanket. With one practiced move, Dean’s thumb pushes Sam’s t-shirt up and he slips his fingers under the waistband of his jeans. His hand spans Sam’s hip from front to back. Sam’s skin is slick with sweat in the hot air trapped under the blanket, and the feel of it is more familiar to Dean than his own. “Go to sleep.” Dean squeezes and releases his grip on Sam, feeling the sharpness of the bone against his palm, feeling his fingers slot into the grooves above and below it as if Sam’s body had been carved just for Dean’s to lock into.

Sam sighs one of his contended sighs. “Night, Dean. Night, Dad.” His hand slips under Dean's t-shirt, fingers hooking over his jeans. Dean can feel the hangnails where Sam has chewed his cuticles raw.

“Night, Sam,” John’s voice rumbles from the dark of the front seat.

Dean closes his eyes. John will be looking back now, checking on them. That's a book Dean doesn’t want to read. And he sure as shit doesn’t want John reading whatever he might see in Dean’s eyes right now. Dean throws his free arm across his face, blocking out the world, as his fingers caress his little brother’s soft skin.

Sam is relentless when he wants something. 

And what Sam wants is Dean.

Dean knows. Has known for a while now. He’s pretty sure John knows, too, but Dean isn’t thinking about that.

Dean's not sure how much Sam understands yet of this inchoate desire, this flood of want that threatens to drown them all. Sammy just _wants_ without knowing what exactly he wants. 

What does Dean want? Well, that is the question, isn’t it?


	2. Can you see them pressed into the gravel, pressed into the dirt?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is sixteen and the aching, formless want of fourteen has coalesced into an laser beam of desire. What Sam wants is Dean. Sam wants out and Sam wants normal. And Sam wants Dean to come with him.

Sometimes, maybe in school, or talking to a vic on a hunt, perhaps on the TV, Dean hears about someone who is an only child. One child. Just them. No sisters. No brothers. Dean has seen a lot of things in his twenty years, but this is one thing he still can’t wrap his mind around.

Years ago, Dean knows, he was an only child. There was just him. No Sam. Then Sam came into the world and Dean shifted to his rightful place, only to oldest, and became Sammy’s Big Brother. He used to remember being just him and Mom and Dad before, but then before burned up and now Dean only counts time from that night. And since that night, Dean has been forged into a thing that Takes Care of Sammy. His life, his heart, and his soul, at this point in time, belong to Sammy.

Sammy, who is sitting curled up at one end of the couch, staring over the back of it at Dean as he walks barefoot and shirtless across the worn linoleum in the kitchen. The rooms are separated only by a large archway and Dean can feel Sam’s eyes on his back as he open the curved, white door of the refrigerator. Sam’s gaze follows the vivid red lines wrapping around Dean’s right side. The marks start under his right arm, curve around his back, and dip down into the waistband of the soft sweatpants he threw on after his shower. A going away present from the pair of ghost they’d salted and burned a few hours ago just as the first rays of sun began seeping across the Oklahoma prairie like a slow-rising flood of red. 

The whoops of victory they couldn’t hold back spilled out the open windows as they rode right into that sunrise. The wind, already carrying the promise of the brutal August day, pounded through the car, sending candy wrappers and Sam’s old homework spiraling through the air like paper butterflies. The sparks in Sam’s eyes caught in Dean’s as he looked over, both of them smiling fit to burst. Dean had grabbed the back of Sam’s neck in a tight grip, shaking him joyously, and pulled Sam across the seat so he fell off balance into Dean’s side. Dean kissed him hard on the head and shoved him back up against the door. Sam laughed wildly, head hanging out the window, hair whipping in the wind, and Dean just want to drive, drive, drive forever like that.

Now, a few hours later, showered, coming down from the adrenaline high but still too keyed up to sleep, Dean feels something building in this house, rising with the heat and the sound of the cicadas. He pulls out two beers, leans over the short fridge door and meets Sam’s eyes like he knew he would. When John is out of the house, Sam watches Dean like a hawk. Dean knows how a rabbit must feel, sensing that killing gaze from the sky. He holds up both beers, offering. The bottles clink together loudly. The house is quiet. No radio, no television, just the damn cicadas whirring louder and louder, the sound of heat, and Sam hasn’t said much since they got back. Now he just tilts his head and raises one eyebrow at Dean. 

“Breakfast of champions,” he says, walking out of the kitchen. Sam’s head swivels to follow Dean’s path as he crosses the floor and sinks to the edge of the couch. Sam pulls his knees up under the crocheted blanket, giving Dean more room on the oversized loveseat they call a couch. Ninety-five degrees in the shade and Sam is curled under a blanket. _Whatever gets you through the day,_ Dean thinks, opening the beers with the ring on his right hand. He leans forward and holds on out to his brother. Sam’s face is solemn as he takes the bottle from Dean’s fingers. Dean tilts his bottle towards Sam and they clink their bottles together, raising them in a salute to each other, and drink.

Dean exhales loudly, shifting around on the couch trying to find a way to sit that doesn’t hurt his back. “You did good. Sam. Real good.”

Sam’s smile is almost a full-out Sammy special. Dean loves that. But there’s something doubtful in Sam's eyes. “What?” Dean asks.

Sam holds out his bottle, pointing the bottom of towards Dean, motioning up and down with it, encompassing the whole of Dean’s marked up torso. Dean twists his head over his shoulder to look at the scratches, feels gingerly where they cross his lower back. “This?” He shrugs, taking a slug of the beer. “It’s a scratch. Gotten worse training.” The way he hovers on the edge of the couch, trying not to let his back touch anything, makes his claim less than convincing.

Sam digs his toes under Dean’s thigh and wiggles them, something he’s done for as long as Dean can remember. Sam always has cold toes. “C’mere,” Sam says, lifting up the blanket and pulling Dean closer between his spread legs. He tugs and pulls at Dean, until Dean’s right arm is hooked over Sam’s bent knee so Dean can lean against Sam’s leg without anything pressing against his injury.

Dean’s not sure how he feels about Sam being able to manhandle him like he’s some girl. But Sam just keeps getting bigger and stronger. At sixteen, he’s taller than Dean now; all angles and knobby joints. Sometimes when John leaves them alone for weeks at a time, Dean struggles to get enough money to buy the immense amounts of food Sam needs, sick with knowing that Sam still goes to bed hungry some nights.

But not today. Today there is enough food for two hungry young men, they have successful hunt to celebrate, cold beer to drink, and the house to themselves.

Sam’s maneuvering has forced Dean’s right leg up against what might charitably be described as the back of Sam’s upper thigh, but more accurately would be called his ass. His left leg dangles off the edge of the couch, trapped beneath Sam’s outstretched right leg. Dean feels the pull of the spread in his groin. Sam tugs, pulling the blanket out from between them and throwing it over where their legs are tangled together. “Better?” he asks without inflection. He lifts the beer bottle to his mouth and meets Dean’s eye over the edge of it. There’s maybe a foot of space between their faces and Sam’s ever-changing eyes are blue-edged green now. Sixteen years of watching have taught Dean that color means Sam desperately wants something that he isn’t one hundred percent sure he can have.

A conviction has been building in Dean gradually, and right now, looking at his brave, strong, smart gorgeous brother, the truth of it slams into him. Dean’s world, his family, survives by the grace of Sam. As hard as Dean works to keep them together, building bridges between Sam and John who are too much alike to stand each other sometimes, as much as it seems like Dean is at the center of it, he know that if Sam breaks, they all break. Sixteen-year-old Sam, who is barreling full-steam into a future he sees with shining clarity. Dean knows that Sam is relentless when he wants something. He's sixteen, and the aching, formless want of fourteen has coalesced into a laser beam of desire. What Sam wants is Dean. What Sam wants is out and Sam wants normal. And Sam wants Dean to come with him. 

What Dean wants right now is more beer. He tips the bottle to his mouth and takes a long swallow. Sam reaches up and strokes the side of Dean’s neck, and Dean is caught between a Stooges-worthy spit take and choking. His knows that his eyes are huge and round as he forces his throat to relax and let the beer go down.

“You’re so beautiful,” Sam is saying, and Dean’s brain has nothing for him so he just looks away and finishes his beer.

Sam’s reaches down under the blanket and rubs Dean’s calf, brushing lightly where it rests against his body. He follows the line of Dean’s bent leg down and over the foot, over to the thigh he has trapped, fingertips pressing ever so slightly against the inside of Dean’s knee as he lifts his leg the smallest bit off Dean’s. Almost without though, Dean shift his legs open wider. Sam’s smile is dark and wicked as he hooks an ankle around Dean’s hip and pulls him just a bit closer. Dean falls forward, bracing himself against the arm of the couch with the hand not hooked around Sam’s knee. They’re twisted together like kudzu on a wire. Sam in the cage of Dean’s arms, Dean tucked between Sam’s legs. Dean cock is so hard it hurts, and the way he’s folded almost in half over Sam isn’t helping. He can’t help it, he has to know. A quick glance down Sam’s body and he can see that Sam is just as hard. 

_Damn it._ He didn’t… _That’s not_ …Dean’s body responds to Sam on a whole different level than Dean’s brain does. Sam says jump, Dean's body does, without even asking how high. Sam knows it, too, and he's not above taking advantage of it. The look in Sam’s eyes the first time he realized the power he had over Dean is burned into Dean’s psyche, and the memory of it makes him hard every time. His body is a traitor in every way. 

It had happened about a year earlier. Make it a year and a half, because Dean remembers it was cold. They were sparring, white puffs of breath surrounding them as they crashed into each other, sneakers scrabbling for purchase on the frozen dirt of the lot behind that week’s motel. It had felt good out in the sharp air, so cold it stung his nose as he breathed. They’d been going at it for a while, neither able to get a clear advantage.

Sam charged, grabbing at Dean as Dean pivoted, almost fast enough. He managed to capture one of Dean’s arm and the front of his jacket. Laughing through his panting breath, Dean twisted loose. “Not bad, Sammy. Almost. Try it again. I’ll go a little easier.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to laugh as he bounced on his toes, not attacking but alert, watching for any moves from Dean. “I’ve been going easy on you, old man.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really?” He jerked his chin at Sam, goading him on with a small motion of both hands. “Bring it. Let’s see what you got, baby boy.” 

The clashed and grabbed in earnest. No eye gouging, no blows meant to main or permanently damage, but one of them was going to go down and go down hard. Afterwards, Dean blamed it on a patch of black ice, but, really, Sam had pulled out a fucking beautiful, devious move that he must have gotten from some Jet Li movie, and before Dean could even register what Sam was doing, both of Dean’s legs were wrenched out from underneath him and his back was rushing to the ground. The only saving grace was that he managed to grab Sam’s shoulder as he fell, pulling Sam down with him. If he was going down, he wasn’t going alone.

When almost six feet and a hundred and sixty pounds of Sam crashed full-length onto him, Dean admitted to himself that maybe he hadn’t thought that move through all the way. He struggled to get his breath back as Sam laughed and yanked Dean’s arms up and over, pinning his wrists to the ground on either side of his head. “Oh, I got it,” he crowed.

Dean twisted his head, spitting Sam’s hair out of his mouth, and pulled against Sam’s hold. Sam’s hands just tightened, fingers effortlessly spanning the whole of Dean’s wrists. He pushed up onto his elbows and stared down at Dean. “Say uncle,” he demanded, eyes golden, lips twitching as he struggled to hold back a grin.

“Fuck you.” Dean jerked up, trying to head-butt his suddenly really strong little brother.

Sam pushed Dean’s trapped wrists against the ground and somehow made himself heavier on Dean. Dean felt Sam’s wiry legs settle more firmly over his own. 

“Say it.”

“Bite me.” Dean could see the vapor of his breath curling around Sam’s face, caressing his mouth. That pink mouth that was inches from his. Dean licked his chapped lips. He felt Sam’s chest push against his with each inhale.

“Dean.” Sam’s voice had slipped permanently into a deeper register a few months ago but Dean had never heard him sound like this before. Like someone Dean needed to listen to. Like their father. He turned his head away, Sam’s hair tickling his cheek as he did. “Dean.” Sharper that time, a crack in the still winter air. Dean’s gaze snapped back to Sam before he could think about it. That was the first time his body reacted to Sam before his mind could register a complaint. Then Sam nudged gently at Dean’s leg with his knee, and Dean felt his legs shift and splay open to either side of Sam. Sam slid up tightly into the cradle of Dean’s hips, and that was the second time Dean’s body betrayed him. ‘Dean.” A whisper this time. Like it was the only word he could say, the only word Dean could hear.

Sam dragged Dean’s arms through the dirt, over Dean’s head, until he could grasp both wrists in one of his huge hands. His free hand hovered over Dean’s mouth. His tongue peeked out between his lips, and Dean’s inhale was a ragged gasp. Sam’s hips pressed down into his, steady and demanding like he was trying to push Dean into the earth. Dean’s cock was as traitorous as the rest of his body and it pushed hard against Dean’s jeans, pushed into Sam’s weight. Sam lightly touched his finger to the underside of Dean’s chin and Dean obediently tilted his head back, mouth pointed up and throat stretched out and exposed. _“God,”_ Sam breathed. It still sounded like _Dean_. If Sam didn’t stop those little rolling movements of his hip, Dean was going to come in his pants.

Then John yelled for them from the front of the motel and the moment crashed. They could hear him crunching over the old snow and gravel of the parking lot, coming towards them. Dean tensed, but if he had been expecting Sam to jump up, scramble away before John could find them, he would have been wrong. Sam lay there, trapping Dean beneath him, until John’s footsteps were just around the corner. Dean waited, quivering, but he made no move to throw Sam off. He wasn’t in charge here. There was no hiding it anymore. Sam knew what Dean had always known. Sam has a power over Dean. Over his heart and soul and now, apparently, his body. There’s nothing Dean can deny Sam if it’s something Sam really wants. John rounded the corner, and Sam slowly, gracefully sat back on his heels and rose up, reaching his hand down to Dean as he lay still on the ground, staring up at Sam. 

Dean had looked over at his father who briefly met his eyes then turned away to inspect the snowy ground. “Let’s go, boys,” he said gruffly. “Get your stuff.”

“Yes, sir” Dean brushed off his jeans, gave a nod and started to walk quickly back to the room. Sam waited a second until it was obvious John wasn’t going to say anything more or even look up at his youngest son. Sam’s smile was small, but Dean could see the smugness behind it.

So, yeah, Sam knew what he wanted. And Sam was relentless when he wanted something.

But what does Dean want?

Right now, surrounded again by Sam, he just wants time to stop so he can think. So he can figure out what happens next. Where do they go from here? And in this brutal summer, under a sky burned white by the Oklahoma sun, in an over-heated stifling room, Dean gets what he wants.

The sound outside is unexpected and unmistakable. John’s truck. He’s home days early. Dean’s frozen, trapped in the thick amber air and in the memory of that earlier moment. Neither he nor Sam moves as they listen to the truck pull up the driveway and stop. Then the creak of the car door opening and the heavy thud as it shuts. He shudders when he hears the screen door creak open. Once John passes the foot of wall separating the hallway from the living room, he’s going to see them. And there’s no going back. Sam knows and Dean knows. This is exactly what it looks like. Sam drags his hand back from where it was hanging over the back of the couch, beer dangling from his fingers. He puts the bottle to his mouth and drinks the last drops. Dean can’t look away. Sam smiles at him. _It’s okay,_ he mouths and drops the bottle to the floor. The thunk and rattle it makes as it rolls in a curving arc back and forth across the worn wooden floor echoes in the room.

“Boys?” John calls from the doorway. The screen door shuts with a thin aluminum bang. 

Dean can’t look up as his father walks into the room. He watches Sam instead as Sam turns cool eyes to John. Dean hears John’s sure footsteps hesitate, and then stop. Sam’s expression is a little challenging. Not in the belligerent way that normally characterizes his interactions with his father, it’s more claim than challenge. This battle is over, his eyes say. Over before it was begun. 

John had known what they were fighting over. Had known he was going to lose eventually. Sam was Dean’s, that he knew. John had given him to Dean when Dean was only four years old. And Dean, for all his obedience, was always going to be Sam’s. “Dean?” There’s a question in his voice. Dean’s fluent in John Winchester and he knows what his father is asking. _Is this okay? Are you okay? Is this what you want? Is it what’s best for Sam?_ Dean has always been awed at how much his brother and father can squeeze into his simple, four-letter name.

 _Is this what you want?_ And in that instant, Dean knows exactly what he wants. He wants Sam to stay. He wants his father to love them more than he craves vengeance. He wants to drive with Sam next to him forever, reckless and young, hunting things and saving people and cheating death over and over. And he knows he isn’t going to get any of that. Sam is going to leave. Dean’s not stupid. He’s seen the college applications Sam’s been filling out. Sam’s going to leave and Dean’s going to stay right here and fight to keep his father alive because Sam leaving is going to break them and it’s Dean’s job to patch them back together however poorly he can do it.

So he knows what he wants and he knows he can't get it. But in the words of a great philosopher, sometimes you get what you need. Sometimes you take what you can get. He smiles at Sam, leans down and kisses him on the forehead. The blinding smile he gets in return is worth all the heartache to come.

“Yeah, Dad,” he says, still not looking at his father. He’s not that brave, not yet. “We’re good. Good hunt?”

He hears John’s stuttering exhale. Can imagine John rubbing his hand over his face, through his hair. Something else he and Sam share. “Yeah. Yeah. It was good. Got it. Got some possible line on something that might help.”

“Great.” Dean’s arm is getting tired and his cuts are starting to burn, so pulls back a bit, wincing. “Hurts?” Sam asks. Dean shakes his head. “Stings. I’m just tired.”

John hears the wince. “Are you hurt, Dean?” he takes a hesitant half-step into the room, like he’s afraid of what he might see if he gets closer. Dean realizes all his father can see from that angle is Sam’s face, Dean’s naked back, and the way Dean is leaning over Sam. He rubs his hand briskly across his short hair, making eye contact with Sam and jerking his head towards the bedroom the share at the back of the house. Sam nods.

“It’s nothing, Dad.” Dean stands up, stretches his arms hard over his head. Now the scratches really burn. “Simple salt and burn. But we only finished at sunrise. Haven’t slept yet.”

Sam gets off the couch, stands a step behind Dean’s right shoulder. It feels right. John nods his head. “Yeah. Yeah, me neither.” Dean can hear the fatigue in his voice. “I’m gonna…” He points to his bedroom. “You boys…take care of yourselves, that scratch.”

Sam answers for them. “We will. Don’t worry.”

John laugh is short and sharp. “Yeah. Well...too late for that. Get some sleep. We’ll leave tonight.”

“Yessir.” Their replies overlap. Sam takes Dean’s hand as they watch John walk away.

Dean’s shoulder sag as he lets out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. He feels Sam’s chest heave as he does the same. Dean’s legs feel weak and his hands are trembling just a bit. He’s not quite sure if he’s relieved or disappointed at what just happened. He almost wishes John had torn into them, ripped them apart, called them _freaks_ and _unnatural_ and _wrong._ With a strength of conviction borrowed from his father, Dean could have put a stop to this. With John’s support, he could have stopped this even now. With his blessing, however passive, Dean knows he is damned. Because, god help him, he wants this, too. And tonight, both he and Sam are going to get what they want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the story that just keeps growing. It's stretched to three chapters, but I promise a pay off at the end of the next one. just am getting lost in Dean's mind.


	3. All this and love, too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crumbling difference between wrong and right.

Sam and Dean don’t touch as they walk down the hallway to the room that’s theirs for the rest of the day at least. From what John said about having a lead, Dean figures they don’t have overlong left. And from the way Sam’s hand feels when he cups the back of Dean’s neck, fingers reaching up to caress his jaw, Dean knows the time is long passed to do what’s right and back away from this thing that’s twisted through and around them like the kudzu strangling the trees in the South. 

The room is small and bright. The sun is full up now, and it filters through the cracks and edges of the stained shades in the windows, painting streaks of light and dark across the floor and the mattresses. The windows are open, and the breeze breathes the shades in and out. The air is sweet with the scent of sun on the dying grasses.

Sam flows against Dean when he stops a few feet into the room. His hand slides down Dean’s neck and across his collarbone, hooking around his ribs. He feels Sam’s mouth over his ear, in his hair. Sam whispers “Dean, _Dean_ ,” trembling against him. They’re the same height now, Dean thinks irrelevantly, and he’s turning, sliding within Sam’s embrace to close the door and gently push Sam against it in one smooth move. Chest to chest against the hollow plywood, and Dean can feel Sam’s heart fluttering like a trapped humming bird. His eyes are wild, his breathing is deep and ragged. Their faces are inches apart, and all Dean can see are Sam’s multicolored eyes, the black pupil swallowing most of the color. Sam’s hands, so demanding and sure under the blanket in the living room, now hover tentatively over Dean’s shoulders, graze his hips, seeking permission to grab and hold.

 _It can’t be like this_ , Dean thinks. Sam has to be sure, has to want this. Dean is walking on quicksand here and his only safety is in the bedrock of Sam’s belief. Dean slides his hands up under Sam’s shirt, fingers reaching around to his back, thumbs hooked in the crease of Sam’s hips, like he knows Sam loves. He feels Sam shudder, watches his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows.

He pulls Sam’s hips against him, more to get his attention than out of lust, but still, the feel of Sam’s body against his half-hard dick makes him hiss. Sam’s hands grip tightly on Dean’s bare shoulders, and he leans his head back against the door while staring at Dean. “Dean. I…do you…” Blood floods his face. Dean can feel the heat of the blush. And suddenly Dean remembers that, for all his bravado, Sam is only sixteen years old. Dean relaxes minutely, pulling back from the precipice. “Sammy,” he begins.

Sam’s grip on his shoulder tightens and his head is shaking back and forth with an unspoken _no, no_ before his voice can catch up. “No, Dean. No. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Sam’s expression is fierce. “Like I’m a kid. A kid who doesn’t know what he wants. I know what I want.”

“I know, Sam.” He rubs his thumbs mindlessly, feeling the softness of Sam’s skin over the hard bone and smooth muscle. He looks down at where his sun-browned hands are touching the pale skin of Sam’s stomach. Sam runs his hands down Dean’s arms, resting them over Dean’s. Dean is surprised to notice that Sam’s hands are actually bigger than his, the fingers longer and more slender. He waits, but Sam doesn’t do anything else, their bodies rocking gently together with each breath. Dean looks up at Sam, a question in his eyes. “If you want it, why aren’t you doing anything?”

Sam’s inhale is sharp and deep. One of his arms wraps around Dean’s waist like a steel band, and the other grips Dean’s head and pulls him into a devouring kiss, years in the making. 

_God_. Sam’s mouth is hot against Dean’s, and there is nothing tentative about the way his teeth dig into Dean’s lips. Dean pushes Sam hard against the door and sucks his tongue into his mouth. Sam’s hips buck against Dean, his hands clutching wildly at Dean’s back. Pain sparks from the fresh cuts, blending with the waves of heat surging up Dean’s spine.

Sam wrenches away from Dean’s mouth with another bite at his swollen lips. He nips and licks up Dean’s neck, biting until Dean is half-crazy with it. Sam’s rock-hard erection is pressed into Dean’s and it feels better than anything ever has, better than anything ever will. Slowly, the hot breath in Dean’s ear resolves into words that Dean can’t process at first. “Stop me, stop me,” Sam is begging almost silently, even as his hands slip under the waistband of Dean’s sweatpants. “Dean, _oh god_ , Dean. Why aren’t you – _fuck_ , your skin – Dean, please, why aren’t you _stopping_ me?”

For a second, resentment blazes up in Dean and he freezes. How is this on him? He _has_ to listen to dad and _has_ to take care of Sam. Those are the twin pillars of his life. So he’s doing that. John’s silence speaks as loudly as a direct order. And Sam needs this, he needs this to stay in the family, stay with Dean and John where they can protect him, where he can be safe. _Goddamn it, he’s just trying to do his job._

Then Sam’s mouth finds his again, and Dean can’t stop himself, can’t keep his hands out of Sam’s thick hair, can’t stop from shoving a leg between Sam’s so he can feel the hard press of Sam's erection. Sam’s stuttering inhale is like a punch in the gut. When Dean rolls Sam’s hips into him, dragging Sam up so he’s riding Dean’s thigh, Sam’s desperate moans shatter any illusions Dean has about his lack of culpability here. This is not just Dean following order. He wants this. _God_ , he fucking wants this, has wanted it for years. He has to take this from Sam, to hear him moan, and cry, and beg. To feel his baby brother’s gorgeous body beneath him, and to watch that beautiful face as Dean’s hands and mouth and cock pull orgasm after orgasm out of him.

So he’ll shoulder the blame and shame for this. He won’t be able to say, even the sanctity of his own mind, that he was helpless in the face of Sam’s want. That he had no choice but to use his body to fill the vacuum of John’s abdication. It’s his fault anyway, somewhere he twisted his brother and he has to take the blame. Anything to hold the family together. 

“Oh fuck, oh, god, _please_ , Dean.” Sam’s hands are flat against the door, his head rocking back and forth against the wood, eyes closed. Dean’s hands are locked on Sam’s ass and Sam is grinding on Dean’s thigh, so fucking good that Dean thinks he’s going to come just from that. 

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Dean exhales, using all his willpower to pull a hair’s breadth away. Reluctantly, he pries his hands off of Sam’s amazing ass, and holds Sam’s face, stopping the rocking motion. “Sam. Sammy. Look at me.” Sam opens his eyes, meeting Dean’s. “Hey, it’s okay. I got you.” Sam tries to shake his head, to deny Dean’s words, but Dean’s grip won’t let him. “It’s okay,” Dean repeats. 

Sam turns his head, kissing Dean’s palm. He brings his own hands up to cover Dean’s. “It’s not, Dean. I know it’s not okay.” He darts forward and kisses Dean. The kiss is sweet, gentle, not like the desperate clash from before, and Dean’s cock jerks hard, tenderness more a shock than the lust. “God, you’re so beautiful,” Sam whispers. “So beautiful.” 

Dean lets go of Sam’s face and slides his hands up under Sam’s shirt, tugging it upwards. As it bunches under his arms, Sam lifts his arms and Dean slides the shirt off. He pushes the memory of the hundreds of times he did this for a much younger and much smaller Sam down deep into his unconscious. 

Though he's still lanky, arms and legs grown in advance of the rest of his body, Sam’s chest is smoothly muscled. Dean loves it. He runs his hands up and down, around Sam’s sides, up his back until he reaches Sam’s shoulder blades, and pulls him tightly against his body. He maps every inch of Sam’s mouth, pulls back to nip at his lips, his sweet pink lips, sucks on Sam’s tongue like a promise. One Dean fully intends to keep. 

"Dean, _Dean_ , fuck, Dean.” Sam’s hands are hot on Dean’s body. “You want this, right? You really want this?” 

Dean turns his body and presses his painfully- hard erection into Sam’s equally hard length. The pressure makes them both gasp. Sam moans and Dean feels Sam throbbing against his dick. He laughs a wild laugh and damns himself. “Yeah, Sam. God, yeah, I want this.” 

Sam’s eyes darken quickly and his expression is predatory. “Good,” he says, and, in a sweet move Dean that will be proud of some other time, has Dean flat on his back on the thin mattresses before he can blink. Dean flinches as the cuts on his back pull and bite. There will be blood on the mattress later. But none of that matters now. Dean feels like he’s been hard forever and if he doesn’t come soon, he might just die. Sam must feel the same way, because he shucks his sweatpants and drops to his knees next to Dean. He grips the waist of Dean’s pants, and Dean lifts his hips as Sam strips him. Dean reaches out for Sam, wanting to feel his body over him, but Sam just reaches out and grabs Dean’s straining cock, pulling it away from his stomach. Then he bends over and swallows Dean down. 

“Fuck, Sammy!” Dean’s yell is loud in the room and he prays his dad is passed out drunk on the other side of the wall. Sam’s mouth is a furnace and his hand a vice as it jerks up and down Dean’s cock. It’s sloppy and almost painful, Sam’s teeth grazing Dean’s dick, his hand too dry despite the spit dripping down from his stretched-out lips. Dean thinks if he's lucky, he'll last about two seconds longer. 

He reaches out to touch Sam’s shoulders, his neck and stomach muscles straining with the effort of keeping his head up. But Dean has to see this, has to watch the painfully erotic vision of his dick disappearing into Sam’s mouth. He can hear the pounding of his heart in his ears and his balls are tight against his body. He needs to tell Sam to pull off, that’s he’s going to come soon. As he does, Sam looks up at him through the sweaty strands of hair plastered to his forehead, mouth stretched around the head of Dean’s throbbing cock. Dean’s hips thrust him deeper into Sam’s mouth and he comes as hard as he ever has, moans and curses that he can’t hold back spilling from his mouth. “Fuck, _Sammy_. God, so good. Love you, love you, baby boy." 

Sam throws himself over Dean while Dean’s cock is still throbbing. He’s almost sobbing as he mouths frantically at Dean’s face and neck, nothing as coordinated as kissing. He ruts helplessly against Dean, dick slipping through the puddle of come on Dean’s skin. His grunts punch into Dean as he comes with a long, low groan. Dean feels Sam’s dick shooting load after load where it’s trapped between their bodies. 

Dean grunts as Sam drops his weight on him. This side of a mind-blowing orgasm, he can’t help but notice how the sweat and the scratch of the harsh mattress is making the scrapes on his back sing. He reaches up and gently slides Sam to his side, kissing his cheek as he does. 

Sam rolls onto his back, and throws an arm over his eyes to block out the sun. His chest rises and falls heavily as he struggles to get his breath back. “Jesus. Dean. That was…I can’t...” He shifts his arm up to uncover one eye and turns his head to look at Dean. “Was it...is it always like that?” 

Dean is shaking his head before Sam can even finish. “No, Sam. No.” He rolls onto his side and slides a leg over Sam. Sam lifts his head so Dean can slip an arm under his neck and pull Sam into him. “It’s never like that. Only with you. Only you.” 

Sam eyes droop as sleep creeps on him. It’s been a long, emotional night and morning. Dean feels a black pit of sleep threatening to suck him down, and he gropes along the floor for something to wipe off their stomachs. He finds his shirt from the earlier hunt and uses that to clean them. The shirt isn’t that clean to start with, blood and dirt and ashes on it, and Dean can hardly believe that it's still the same day that they headed off in the Impala for their first hunt as a team. It feels like another lifetime. 

Sam smiles, eyes still closed, and snuggles deeper into Dean, in defiance of the heat filling the room. “Only you, Dean,” he says into Dean’s neck. “Love you.” 

Dean tugs Sam’s face up for one last kiss before sleeps claims them both. It’s hot and sweet, all sliding tongues and nipping teeth, and they’re both breathing a little faster when they pull apart. Sam’s smile is brighter than the sun, and Dean can’t stop from smiling in response. He won’t let this damn them, won’t let this pull them apart, ever. Maybe, maybe this bond might actually save them. He pushes Sam’s head down in the mattress. “Love you, too, Sammy. Always. Now sleep.” They're both asleep in seconds. 

***** 

The faint sound of his son’s yell drags John from his restless, drunken sleep. The bright light is disorienting, and he thinks he might still be drunk. He struggles to sit up, straining his ears and listening past the dizziness in his head to see if the yell is repeated. It could be a nightmare, his or one of the boys’. Or it could be something threatening his family. 

The he hears it again, clearer. It’s Dean, calling out his brother’s name like it's salvation and damnation at the same time. The memory of what John did - or more accurately didn’t do - in the living room slams into him, and John is retching over the side of the bed. _Oh god_. 

He knew what he was turning away from, what he was allowing to happen, and now he’s paying the price. He can hear them, can’t _stop_ hearing them even with both hands over his ears. He deserves to feel like this. He knows it. He created this, this whole situation. Took two innocent children and turned them into killing machines, ripped off even the illusion of safety in the world. Gave them only each other as a home and taught them to depend on and trust only each other. Who else could they ever turn to for comfort? For love? 

The walls are paper-thin in this dustbowl shack, and John can almost make out the words his boys say to each other, words of reassurance and love. Promises that sound like forever. And John prays that it’s so. 

John knows he’s damned, headed for hell for so many reasons. But not, he thinks, for this. As wrong and twisted as the world might judge him and them, he has a desperate feeling that this is their only hope. He prays that this love between them will forge them into an unbreakable force. That they will be each other’s salvation on this road to hell he has selfishly and mercilessly set them on. Please, he prays for the one-millionth time to a god he no longer believe in. Please, protect them, watch over them. Help them watch over each other. 

With the glass of water long experience has taught him to bring into the room, John rinses out his mouth, swallows a handful of aspirin against the inevitable hangover, then prays again for the strength to look his boys in the eye in the morning. He won’t be ashamed and he won’t let them be. That, at least, he can give them. He hopes it will be enough. 


End file.
